NYCPHP Meetup

[inforequest]

Jeff Loiselle jeff.loiselle-at-gmail.com |nyphp dev/internal group use| 
wrote:

>I was just doing some research into budget virtual dedicated servers
>and thought I might "inquire within".
>
>a. Has anyone tried VDS hosting?
>b. what kind of experience did you have?
>c. what are the major factors to look for in a good VDS host?
>
>TIA
>
>- Jeff Loiselle
>_______________________________________________
>  
>
I used Westhost VDS for several clients and have used 2 others but 
wasn't the systems guy for those and don't even remember the details.

I can say two things about it that might be helpful:

1. For me it's more about the hosting company and CP than the server 
technology, IMHO. That's just where 80% of the effort is spent after the 
architecture is set, and a bad CP or a bad host staff can ruin 
everything. It seems to me VDS vendors like to produce custom CPs 
(WestHost's is in PHP and is at best "ok" in my experience).

2. My systems guy had some issues with the VDS when he went to do fun 
stuff like syslog across the servers, BigBrother monitoring, and setting 
up data streams for the Arkeia backup system. When it got to that true 
systems level, where his expectation was that he'd have full root on a 
virtualized server, he found he did not. I'm sure Hans Z understands 
this stuff and I don't , but I uhnderstand there are some things that 
can't be chrooted, and when it comes to those you are locked out and 
once again reliant on the host staff, flexibility of their server setup 
etc etc. My guy was surprised to find so much was falling into that 
category, and VDS was not a solution (we went back to dedicated machines).


-=john andrews